Episode 129

It doesn't matter that Russian submarines turn out to be Swedish and not submarines at all; that Russian planes "intercepted" by the RAF turn out to have been flying in international airspace. Or (if you believe the British press) that English football thugs who trashed city after city did so because they were provoked by the Russian bear. But it all fits into the prevailing narrative of Russophobia. So, we invited Dr Thomasz Pierscionek, psychiatrist, writer and founder of the London Progressive Journal into the studio to ask: where is all this anti-Russian propaganda taking us?

And, in the 1980s a generation of stand-up comics weaponized humor against the Thatcherites before going on to make “loadsamoney” themselves – at least in some cases. But they did blaze a trail: instead of shaking an angry fist at those who rob us they made people laugh at them instead. One man walking that same road is comedian Aidan Killian, and he called in to the Sputnik studio en route to Glastonbury and the Edinburgh Festival.